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Jewish issues and candidates made headlines last week and became the subject of some distasteful political rhetoric on the campaign trail.
In Alberta, a 21-year-old hijab-wearing university student resigned Aug. 18 as the Liberal candidate in ...

A new Canadian study is bolstering an argument I've been making to my kids' teachers and principals for years: children born later in a calendar year are more likely to be diagnosed with attention deficit ...

The fallout from the recent controversy over the creation of gay-straight alliance clubs (GSAs) in Ontario's publicly funded Catholic school system should give pause to those seeking funding – in the name of fairness – ...

Despite public and private appeals to call off the event, the Jewish Defence League (JDL) went ahead with its unfortunate decision to picket a Liberal fundraiser at the Toronto home of pharmaceutical magnate and Jewish ...

Last week, we examined four “Jewish” battleground ridings, including two – York Centre in Toronto and Mount Royal in Montreal – where, one way or another, a Jewish candidate is likely to win. This week, ...

When Toronto Jews awoke last Saturday morning and collected their Globe and Mail newspapers from their doorsteps (those who still subscribe, that is), they discovered a front-page story detailing how Holy Blossom Temple, the city's ...

Monthly Archives: July 2012

It can be truly inspiring to watch the best athletes in the world – and the best Canada has to offer – compete against one another at the highest levels of sport.

A lightweight leader of a morally bankrupt organization

And I’m proud when Canadians do well. I was elated when sprinter Ben Johnson won gold for Canada in Seoul 1988 (and disappointed when he was stripped of his medal for steroid use). I was perhaps even more thrilled when Donovan Bailey did it again – cleanly, one assumes – in Atlanta in 1996.

But rooting for Canada isn’t why I’m fond of the Games.

I love the Olympics because, ultimately, I couldn’t care less about them.

They’re over-hyped, treacly, meaningless fluff.

Every other year, in the weeks leading up to the Winter and Summer Games – and once they’re finally up and running after months of relentless promotion – I can safely ignore most of the Olympics ephemera crowding the pages of my favourite news websites and my already-skimpy, ad-deprived morning papers.

It’s a real time-saver.

This year, unfortunately, has been a bit different.

That’s because I’ve felt compelled to read as much as I can about the ultimately unsuccessful international effort to hold a minute of silence at the London Games’ opening ceremonies in honour of 11 Israeli Olympians who were murdered by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Munich Games. Continue reading →

So it turns out that all-world point guard Steve Nash isn’t going to be a Toronto Raptor next year.

Boo hoo.

Wonky back and all, the 38-year-old received a contract offer from the Raptors reportedly worth $36 million over three years, but ultimately signed with the Los Angeles Lakers.

While I like Nash – who doesn’t? – and I appreciate the veteran leadership he would have brought to a young Raptors team, I don’t think his presence would have done anything more than make them a fifth- or sixth-seeded playoff team in the NBA’s Eastern Conference – at best.

It’s also hard to see why he would have been a huge upgrade over the incumbent, 30-year-old starter Jose Calderon – who, like Nash, isn’t a great defender – and backup Jerryd Bayless.

I don’t buy the argument that if the Raps couldn’t entice the best baller Canada has ever produced to play in Toronto, they’ll have little chance at enticing other free agents to sign here.

Players don’t sign with the Raptors because the team is awful. One playoff series victory in 17 seasons is the only statistic you need to know in that regard. Continue reading →

My wife and I sent our boys off to sleepover camp last week, and while we’re excited to have 3-1/2 weeks of kid-free alone time, the house is eerily quiet without them.

I woke up the other day thinking about how quickly time passes when you’re busy doing stuff like working, raising kids, making meals and doing laundry. For some reason, I thought about the piece below, which I wrote in 1998 when my eldest son was not even one year old. (It appeared in a slightly different form in the Ryersonian, the newspaper of Ryerson University’s journalism program.)

The baby in this little vignette – which I recently unearthed on an old 3.5-inch floppy disk buried on a shelf in our home office – is now a 5-8, 150-pound 14-year-old.

As I type this, he’s probably on a four-day camping trip in Algonquin Park with his bunkmates.

It almost makes me cry just thinking back to when he was just a little thing on my shoulder.

So, sure, my wife and I are having fun being kidless for a while, but we really do miss our guys, and we miss the smaller versions of themselves that they used to be even more.